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24th September 2014

India's first Mars probe arrives in orbit

India's first probe to Mars – Mangalyaan – successfully entered orbit at 02:00 UTC this morning.

 

india mars probe 2014
By Nesnad (Own work), CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

 

Just three days after NASA's MAVEN mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully delivered its first unmanned craft to Mars, becoming only the fourth agency to do so. Launched in November 2013, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan ("Mars-craft") was developed at a cost of only $74 million, nine times less than the $671 million spent on NASA's effort. This morning, after a journey of 422 million miles (680 million km), MOM fired its main motors along with eight smaller engines to reduce its velocity as it approached the Red Planet, before entering into a highly elliptical orbit of 261 x 48,000 miles (421 x 77,000 km).

In the coming weeks, the spacecraft will be thoroughly tested to ensure it is fully functional, before commencing observations of the planet using a suite of five scientific instruments: a Lyman-alpha photometer, methane sensor, exospheric neutral composition analyser, thermal infrared imaging and a colour camera providing images in the visual spectrum. With a mission duration of six months, it will study Mars' surface features, morphology, mineralogy, atmosphere and weather systems. It has autonomous features to handle contingency situations.

Including MOM, a total of five satellites are now actively orbiting Mars. The others are MAVEN (US), Mars Odyssey (US), Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (US) and Mars Express (Europe). In addition, two rovers are operational on the surface – Opportunity and Curiosity.

The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, applauded those who achieved the historic rendezvous: "Today, all of India should celebrate our scientists. Schools, colleges should applaud this. If our cricket team wins a tournament, the nation celebrates. Our scientists' achievement is greater."

Mars missions have been notorious for their high failure rate. India has now become the first country to make it to Mars on its first attempt: "The odds were stacked against us," added Modi. "Of the 51 missions attempted across the world so far, a mere 21 had succeeded. But we have prevailed."

ISRO plans to send a follow-up mission with a greater scientific payload in the 2017-2020 timeframe; this will include an orbiter and a stationary lander. Several other missions are planned by NASA and Europe. Another country with ambitions to reach Mars is the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which plans to send a spacecraft in 2021.

You can follow India's Mars mission on Twitter @ MarsOrbiter.

 

 

 

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